Dear followers I am very sorry it has taken me this long to write. Here is a blog entry I wrote one month after returning home from Kona. I thought I had published it but apparently it has been sitting here the whole time. Please forgive my technical difficulties:
Hello again my faithful supporters and blog followers!
So it's been a bit over one month now since I have come home from my DTS. What a crazy experience! It's been eye opening to say the least! As most of you know I started my journey in January with the excitement of a new adventure, an acceptance to a Medical Discipleship Training School that I had barely just heard about, and a one way ticket to Hawaii. It was both thrilling and scary at the same time, but I knew God had some amazing adventures planned for me. And boy was I right!!!
The first three months of school were challenging and inspiring. I met many new friends from all over the world that I know will to stay dear to my heart and will continue to challenge me for many years to come. Something God really spoke to me about was the importance of Godly friends who are actively seeking His will for their lives and who aren’t afraid to challenge me in ways I need to be challenged. Being home now has been hard because I feel like I am starting that all over again with trying to find new friends who can challenge me in those ways.
The last two months were overseas, on Outreach to the Philippines. That was also challenging but so incredibly exciting! I absolutely love the excitement of traveling and learning about other cultures from the people themselves. I had an amazing team and was very, very blessed by our unity. We became a close knit family and I believe God really used us to touch the filipino people. I even got pretty sick during one of the last weeks of outreach and my team took such good care of me I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to be in another country and be sick with, other than my actual family.
Being home however has made me think back on my last few months in which I feel like I've learned more by reflecting than I remember learning while I was actually there.
I have learned so many new things about the character of God, and most importantly, that I need a lot of second chances and I mean A LOT! I think it takes me at least two times for things to actually stick and I am so grateful that my God is so patient and loving towards me. Many of the things I learned on DTS were things I had heard all growing up as a kid in the church but for some reason this time they meant more to me.
For example, do you know that song "Read your Bible, pray everyday! pray everyday! pray every day-ay-ay! Read your Bible, pray every day! And you will grow, grow, grow!" ??? Well, while I was in the Philippines one day I was sitting outside and just asking God how come I never felt like I was growing very much spiritually and I was having this whole conversation with God I heard a little boy singing that song. I stopped and just listened for a few minutes and then it hit me! It couldn't be that simple?! Could it?? I felt kind of silly that a children's song that I had known for years was part of my answer from God. But I wasn't about to just ignore it. So from then on, I have been having more quiet times with God and made a point of trying to pray before I do anything. It has changed my relationship with God in so many ways. It feels much more personal now.
Another thing I learned in the Philippines was about viewing people through God's eyes. This is something I'd like to say I've been doing my whole life, but until now I realized that I really haven't. One of the days that we were taking a Jeepney ride in the city of Manila we had a very strange encounter with a woman who was trying to prostitute herself. The woman boarded the Jeepney that our whole team plus some local YWAMers were on, and started crying and asking for money. It was the easter weekend. When she saw that she wasn't getting any attention or money from anyone, she started taking her clothes off and wailing very loudly. She even started pulling, and putting her hands on me and some of the other passengers. Normally, I would have thought "This is really sad. I wish she would stop." and that is what I was thinking up until I heard God say to me "Ask me what I think of her?" I immediately thought "How strange, God, yes I know you love her, but really ask you?" Again I felt God saying the same thing. So I asked and just started listening. Thats when I knew I hadn't ever actually known what God thought of her, and my assumptions had been wrong. What I heard God say to me about the lady was, that yes, God loved her but that He had not created her for the purpose of selling herself. That He had created her with the right to be a Princess and not a prostitute. She was just as beautiful as me or any other girl, and that she truly deserved a man to respect her, love her, and treat her right. This story always brings me to the verge of tears and makes me emotional because it taught me something of the way God thinks about me. No matter what my lifestyle, appearance, or circumstances may be, and no matter how many times it takes me to actually learn something, God thinks of me on a far different level than anyone in this world could ever come up with on their own.
What an incredible revelation...now its time to move forward and grow from that! Thank you for being apart of my adventures. I am excited to see where God takes me next.
No comments:
Post a Comment